Finding Marlin
by kgorman
Summary: Finding Marlin by Kait


It was finally time for Nemo to be picked up from school, his favorite time of the day. He frantically swam out from underneath the coral, searching for his dad, looking up, down, left, and right. He's always here before I get out.

"Hey Nemo, where's your dad?" said Pearl, his purple squid friend.

"Not sure, he's usually here. Maybe just running late." said Nemo, a bit confused as to where his dad was.

"Oh... yeah... maybe. See you tomorrow!" Pearl said, unsurely, as she swam off with her parents.

It isn't like my dad to not be here. I turned around and saw Mr. Ray talking to parents and decided to go off by myself and go home.

As I arrived to my anemone, I saw that some of the arms had been ripped off. It wasn't its same pretty pink color, it was a light grey. This couldn't be good. I cautiously swam inside and sure enough, he wasn't there. I quickly swam back out and called for him.

"DAD! DAD WHERE ARE YOU? DAD COME BACK!"

I was nervous. He'd never leave me like that. I started searching around for him. Looking in surrounding anemones, looking under rocks, swimming under reefs. There was no sign of him. However, on the other side of our anemone, sticking out of the sand, was a diver's flipper. I hope they didn't take my dad away from me like they took me away from him. Without my dad, I have no one. Dory doesn't remember who I am and Crush was taken into captivity a few weeks ago to help repair a propellor mark he had recently gotten on the back of his shell. It was always him and his dad.

He was trying so hard to lift the flipper out of the sand, but it was lodged in there. It seemed that when the diver had stood over the anemone to get my dad, his foot got caught and he didn't feel the need to bring his flipper with him back to, dare I say, the surface.

I continued to struggle with the flipper when I heard an unfamiliar voice behind me.

"Hey kid you need help with that? Me and my buddy here just got back from lifting some shells and we wouldn't have a problem helping you out."

I turned around and saw two large-shelled lobsters. Their whiskers even had muscles on them.

"Y-y-yeah. That would be great." I was nervous, they could crush me in a flash if they really wanted to.

They lifted out the flipper on the count of three, but it felt quicker than that.

"Here ya go. Oh and by the way, my name's Larry and his name's Terry. It was a pleasure helping you out. In case you didn't know, there seems to be some sort of writing on the bottom of that thing." He was right, written across the bottom was some sort of writing.

"I wish I knew what it said. I don't know how to read." I had learned a little bit from Dory before she forgot me altogether, but its drifted from my memory.

"Terry's a smart guy. He could read that off for ya!"

"Yeah it's true. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's reading. It's the only thing I've ever taught myself, ya heard?"

"Yeah do it, do it of course, please." Nemo had no hesitation in telling him he could read it off.

"Let's see. Hmmm. Mhmmm. Forty-two, that's definitely forty-two. Wall-uhhh, Wallaby Way, S-Sy-Syd-Sydney! Forty-two Wallaby Way, Sydney!"

That sounded familiar, but I couldn't quite think of why. I had heard it before, but when? Did we learn about it at school?

"Oh man that's a bad part of the ocean over there. Gives me the goosebumps just thinking about it." Larry said with shivers.

"Whadda ya mean? I grew up there! Wasn't that bad, just a gross part of the ocean with a lot of eels and, ugh, don't even get me started on those crabs around there." said Terry with shivers.

"You don't remember that little clown fish being taken there a few years back? Remember and his dad swam across the ocean to save him with that ditsy blue fish?"

It hit me. That's why it sounded so familiar. The diver's that had taken me were from the very same place and now they came back and took my dad.

"That was me! I was that clown fish that was saved by his dad. I was taken there. They took my dad."

"Well kid, you'd better get going. That's not a dentist office anymore, it's a sushi restaurant famous for their clownfish roll."

"WHAT?! I-I-I've gotta get going. I have t-t-to go get him."

And just like that, Nemo swam over and off of the reef, something he had never done since he was taken by those same divers.


End file.
